Kospi jumps 4% on OpenAI’s new model: SK hynix +7%, Kioxia +9%, SoftBank +10% — while gold and bitcoin slide on the rate-hike odds
With New York shut for Labor Day, the only tape moving on Monday is Asia’s, and by mid-session it is moving in two clear directions. Chip stocks in Seoul, Tokyo and Taipei are rallying hard on OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra, the new model released last Thursday that Wall Street read as a fresh order book for memory chips: the Kospi is up 4.2% at 6,965, its first time above 6,900 since the late-August sell-off, the Nikkei 225 is up 2.0% at 66,315 and Taiwan’s benchmark 1.6% at 47,300. SK hynix is up 7.4%, Samsung 5.0%, Kioxia 9.3%, SoftBank 10.1%, and the Japanese equipment names that were sold last week on US yields are back: Tokyo Electron +4.7%, Lasertec +7.1%, Kokusai Electric +8.0%.
Friday's session left markets divided along a single axis: semiconductor-linked baskets surged while blue-chip and consumer-facing names declined. The Rubin 100 basket advanced 2.58% on the day, driven by Layer 3 memory and packaging names (+3.99%) and Layer 2 manufacturing (+2.46%), while HALO 100 fell 0.58% and the S&P 500 slipped 0.39%. The Dow fell 0.53%. Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 edged modestly positive, but the week's and month's returns for the Dow and Russell are slightly negative, underscoring that the tech-driven gains are not distributing into the broader market.